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PORNLAND How the Porn Industry Has Hijacked Our Sexuality

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PORNLAND How the Porn Industry Has Hijacked Our Sexuality PORNLAND How the Porn Industry Has Hijacked Our Sexuality Featuring Gail Dines [Transcript] Introduction Gail Dines: There has always been pornography. However, there has not always been a porn industry. When we think of pornography, for many people, especially older people and often many women, what comes to your mind? Playboy? Penthouse? Or even Hustler? Well, unfortunately, and I never thought I’d say this. Those were the good old days. Things have changed dramatically now. And if somebody would have told me ten, fifteen years ago that we would be at the place that we are today with pornography I would never have believed it. So what I am going to do now is explain how the pornography industry works and the images in the industry. And I’m going to do this because a lot of people say, "Isn't porn fantasy? Isn't it fun?" Well, I'm actually going to quote a pornographer who put it really well. "A lot of people get distracted from the business model by the sex. It is just as sophisticated and multi-layered as any other marketplace. We operate just like any other Fortune 500 company." So this is key. This is an industry. It is not fantasy. Fantasy happens in the head. The industry, the porn industry, happens in the banks of international capital. Understanding the Porn Industry Today Hugh Hefner [video clip] Hello there. Glad you could join us this evening. I’m Hugh Hefner, editor-publisher of Playboy magazine and your host. Gail Dines: The real porn industry began in 1953 with the first edition of Playboy. That was the first time ever pornography circulated through the mainstream channels of American capitalism. However today, we are looking at a much larger industry. And the hallmark of a maturing industry is the monopolization and corporatization of ownership. © 2014 Media Education Foundation | www.mediaed.org This transcript may be reproduced for educational, non-profit uses only. 2 Adult Video News, which is one of the trade journals of the industry, wrote: "The corporatization of porn isn't something that will happen or is happening. It is something that has happened. The independent owners, renegade mobsters, and visionary entrepreneurs pushed aside by mega corporations." So let me explain what this industry looks like now. And to do that, we have to understand that the Internet changed the entire face of the porn industry. The Internet made pornography affordable, anonymous, and accessible, the three key things that drive demand. Now, these are kind of approximate statistics: - 36% of the Internet is porn; - The online porn industry makes over $3,000 per second; - There are 40 million regular consumers of porn in America; - One in four search queries is about porn. We often think that the Internet drove pornography. That's partly true. But also, pornography drove the Internet. Pornography actually helped accelerate the development of technology such as live chats, anti-fraud security, pop-ups and pop-unders, mobile services, and especially traffic optimization, which I'm going to talk about later. One of the things they're really putting money into now are improving the screens of the cellphones and the mobile held devices so you can stream your pornography through a mobile held device. So think about the porn industry as putting lots of money into research and development. Now porn businesses, like all businesses, raise capital, hire managers and accountants, organize trade shows, have PR firms, and, very importantly, they interface with banks, credit card companies, venture capitalists, cable operators, etc. That means that every time somebody spends money on pornography, all of these companies are making money. So think about the vested interest that mainstream corporations have in maintaining the porn industry. Never before have we had that. So let me give you an example. Let’s go to the trade shows. Trade Show Announcer [video clip] AVN Expo is officially open. Gail Dines: In 2008, I went to Las Vegas, and I interviewed one of the guys there who runs something called "Real Dolls." So I'm interviewing him, and I said to him, "So tell me, why do you think men buy these dolls?" And he looks at me with a completely serious face and he says, "It helps men develop relationships with women." So I'm writing, "Helps men develop relationships with women." Anyway, so I said to him, "Have you heard of Lars and the Real Girl?" Has anyone seen this? © 2014 Media Education Foundation | www.mediaed.org This transcript may be reproduced for educational, non-profit uses only. 3 Lars and the Real Girl [movie trailer] Lars: Hey. I have a visitor. Gus: Where did you meet this person? Lars: I met her on the Internet. Karin: Yeah, well everybody’s doing that now. Lars: You know Bianca’s a missionary? Gail Dines: So he said, "Have I heard of it?" He said, "We were the consultants to the movie and the day this movie came out, our website crashed because so many men went on our website." That gives you somewhat of an insight into the way mainstream corporations interface with the porn industry. Porn Performer [video clip] Everything that I’ve ever shot can all be seen for free now. Gail Dines: Now, when I often speak about pornography, the first hand that goes up is, "Isn't the porn industry dying because of free porn?" Well, free porn has had a profound effect on the porn industry. But it is a myth that free porn is destroying the porn industry. The reality is that it is reshaping and redefining the business model. So let me explain. New York Magazine wrote that "free porn is an intricate, invisible web of revenue sharing and traffic trading and content-licensing at work." What does that mean? To understand what that means, let me introduce you to Fabian Thylmann. This man and his company, MANWIN, has basically come in and vacuumed up almost the entire porn industry. [News clip] MindGeek, that innocuous looking company, has quietly become one of the most powerful forces in the industry. It owns at least 6 of the top 10 most popular tube sites in the world. Over 80 million visitors a day. Pornhub alone gets more daily visits than Netflix. Gail Dines: The job of Pornhub is to do what the porn industry calls “monetize traffic.” That means you have to drive traffic to paid sites. Another way you monetize, i.e. turn free porn into money, is you have ads for other paid websites. They have ads for penis enlargers, for webcams, and also they sell emails to spammers. So there's many ways that free porn actually makes money. So what does it do with all this money? Because, remember, when you are an industry, you have the power to shape politics, to shape the law, and to shape culture. And I'm going to give you a quick example here. So, recently in Los Angeles they passed "Measure B." [News clip] What’s "Measure B"? It requires actors in adult films to wear condom in sex scenes as a way to prevent – obviously you want to prevent the spread of AIDS, other STDs. Gail Dines: Now, there was a huge campaign to try to stop "Measure B." © 2014 Media Education Foundation | www.mediaed.org This transcript may be reproduced for educational, non-profit uses only. 4 [Advertisement] A mandatory condom law will not make our workplace any safer. Vote “no” on “Measure B,” and keep the adult business in California. Gail Dines: The single biggest donor to stop "Measure B" was actually MANWIN, who gave over $250,000 to try and stop the measure that would make it mandatory for porn performers to use condoms. Now think about this. How many of you ever give blood? Do you notice how everyone when you give blood, even when you go to the dentist, they wear gloves and everything? Just think for a minute what's on a porn site [set]. Semen, feces, urine, saliva, and yet no one has to even wear a condom. So what the AIDS Healthcare Foundation said was, "This is ridiculous! We need to have condoms." MANWIN came in and fought it. Luckily for porn performers, MANWIN lost. Another way that the porn industry uses its money to change laws is what happened in 2002 with the Ashcroft vs. Free Speech Coalition. The Free Speech Coalition is actually the lobbying arm of the porn industry. And what they argued to Ashcroft was that the 1996 Child Pornography Protection Law limited the free speech of the pornographers. What did that act say? That act said that women who looked under 18 could not perform in pornography. The Free Speech Coalition said that that actually limited the free speech rights of the porn industry. The court agreed and opened the way for what I call pseudo- child porn. So now you can have women who are 18 but who look much younger. As in this. Or, as in this. “First time with Daddy.” Or as in this, “Daddy's Whore.” This is all perfectly legal, according to Ashcroft. As in, "It's Ok, she's my stepdaughter." This is the power of the porn industry. This is what industries do. This is what it means to be a corporation. But the other question to ask is: what does it mean to live in a porn culture? What does it mean to grow up in a society where pornography is the major form of sex education? [Movie clip] You’re gonna see sex education.
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